It was the week Hillary Clinton finally conceded. The table was a clutter of bottles and glasses; and though hunger had been satisfied, some mild social addiction kept making hands reach out to snaffle another grape, crumble a landslip from the cliff face of cheese or pick a chocolate from the box. We had talked about Obama's chances against McCain, and whether in the last weeks Hillary had demonstrated guts or mere self-deception. We also considered whether the Labour Party was any longer distinguishable from the Conservatives, the suitability of London's streets for bendy buses, the likelihood of an al-Qaida attack on the 2012 Olympics and the effect of global warming on English viticulture. Joanna, who had been quiet during these last two topics, now said with a sigh, "You know, I could really do with a cigarette."

Everyone seemed to exhale slightly.

"It's just on occasions like this, isn't it?"

"The food. That lamb, by the way..."

"Thanks. It's six hours. Best way to do it. And star anise."

"And the wine..."

"Not forgetting the company."

"When I was giving up, it was the disapproval I hated more than anything. You'd ask if anyone minded, and they all said no, but you could sense them turning away and not breathing in. And either pitying you, which was patronising, or even kind of loathing you."

"And there would never be an ashtray in the house and they'd do a long, exaggerated hunt for some old saucer which had lost its cup."

"And the next stage was going outside and freezing to death."

"And if you stubbed it out in some plant pot, they'd look at you as if you'd given a geranium cancer."

"I used to take my butts home in my purse. In a plastic bag."

"Like dog crap. When did that start, by the way? About the same time? People walking around with inverted plastic bags on their hands, waiting for their dogs to crap."

"I always think it must be warm, mustn't it? Feeling warm dog crap through the plastic."

"Dick, really."

"Well, I've never seen them waiting for it to cool down, have you?"

"These chocolates, to change the subject. Why do the drawings never match what's in the box?"

"Or is it the other way round?"

"The other way round's the same way round."

"The pictures are only an approximation. Like a Communist menu. What would exist in an ideal world. Think of them as a metaphor."

"The chocolates?"

"No, the drawings."

"I used to love a cigar. It didn't have to be a whole one. Half would do."

"They gave you different cancers, didn't they?"

"What did?"

"Cigarettes, pipes, cigars. Didn't pipes give you lip cancer?"

"What did cigars give you?"

"Oh, the poshest kind."

"What's a posh cancer? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?"

"Bum cancer's got to be the bottom of the pile."

"Dick, really."

"Did I say something?"

"Cancer of the heart - is that possible?"

"Only as a metaphor, I'd say."

"George VI - was that lung?"

"Or throat?"

"Anyway, it proved he had the common touch, didn't it? Like staying in Buckingham Palace and getting bombed, and going round the East End shaking hands in the rubble."

"So getting a common form of cancer was in line with that - is that what you're saying?"

"I don't know what I'm saying."

"I don't think he would have shaken hands. Being king."

"Here's a serious question. Obama, McCain, Clinton, which of the three of them was the last to smoke?"

"Bill or Hillary?"

"Hillary, of course."

"Because we all remember Bill's use of the cigar."

"Yes, but did he smoke it afterwards?"

"Or keep it in a special humidor like she kept the dress?"

"He could auction it to pay Hillary's campaign debts."

"McCain must have smoked when he was a POW."

"Obama must have had a joint or two."

"I bet Hillary never inhales."

"By their smoking shall ye know them."

"Actually - as your token American present - Obama used to be a big smoker. Took Nicorettes when he decided to run. But - fallen off the wagon, I hear."

"That's my man."

"Would anyone care if one of them did something bad in that line? And got photographed?"

"Apart from them having to listen to tediously self-excited conversation."

"Actually..."

"Yes?"

"If Bush was, as they say, an alkie and a cokehead in his former existence, then that would help explain his presidency."

"You mean, brain damage."

"No, the absolutism of the recovering addict."

"You are coming out with the phrases tonight."

"Well, it's my trade."

"The absolutism of the recovering addict. Sorry about that, Baghdad."

"So what we're saying is, it does make a difference what they smoked."

"Cigars used to make me mellow."

"Cigarettes used to give me such a high sometimes, my legs would tingle."

"Oh, I remember that."

"I knew someone who would set an alarm clock so he could wake up and have one in the middle of the night."

"Who was that, sweetie?"

"Before your time."

"I should bloody well hope so."

"Anyone see that thing in the paper about Macmillan?"

"The cancer charity?"

"No, the prime minister. When he was chancellor of the exchequer - '55, '56, something like that. A report came in making the link between smoking and cancer. Oh fuck, he thought, where's the money going to come from if we have to ban fags? Three and six in the pound on income tax, or whatever. Then he looked at the figures. I mean, the mortality figures. Life expectation for a smoker: 73. Life expectation for a non-smoker: 74."

"Is that true?"

"That's what it said. So Macmillan wrote on the report: 'Treasury think revenue interest outweighs this'."

"It's the hypocrisy, isn't it?"

"Did Macmillan smoke?"

"Pipe and cigarette."

"One year. One year's difference. It's amazing when you think about it."

"Maybe we should all take it up again. Just round this table. Secret defiance of a PC world."

"Why shouldn't people smoke themselves to death? If you only lose a year."

"Not forgetting the hideous pain and suffering before you get to be the dying 73-year-old."

"Reagan advertised Chesterfields, didn't he? Or was it Lucky Strike?"

"What's that got to do with it?"

"It must have something to do with it."

"It's the hypocrisy, isn't it?"

"You keep saying that."

"Well, it is. That's why I do. Governments telling people it's bad for them while living off the tax. Cigarette companies knowing it's bad for people and selling their stuff to the third world because of getting sued here."

"Developing world, not third world. We don't say that any more."

"The developing-cancer world."

"Not to mention the Humphrey Bogart thing. Remember? When they wanted to put him on a stamp and he was smoking in the photo so they airbrushed it out? In case people were sticking a stamp on a letter and saw Bogey smoking and suddenly thought, Well, that looks like a good idea."

"They'll probably find a way of cutting the smoking out of films. Like colourizing black-and-white movies."

"When I was growing up in South Africa, the Censorship Board cut any film that showed normal contact between blacks and whites. They got Island In The Sun down to about 20 minutes."

"Well, most films are too long."

"I didn't realise you grew up in South Africa."

"And the other thing was, everyone smoked in cinemas. Remember that? You watched the screen through a great haze of smoke."

"Ashtrays in the armrests."

"Right."

"But the thing about Bogey smoking... Sometimes, when I'm watching an old film, and there's a scene in a nightclub with a couple drinking and smoking and swapping bons mots, I think, This is so fucking glamorous, and then I think, actually, can I have a cigarette and a drink right now?"

"It was glamorous."

"Apart from the cancer."

"Apart from the cancer."

"And the hypocrisy?"

"Well, don't inhale."

"Passive hypocrisy?"

"It happens. All the time."

"Is 'colourize' a proper verb, by the way?"

"And does anyone want coffee?"

"Only if you've got a cigarette."

"That was always part of it, wasn't it? The cigarette with the coffee."

"I don't think there are any in the house. Jim left some Gauloises when he stayed, but they're so strong we threw them away."

"And that friend of yours left some Silk Cut, but they're too weak."

"Actually, low tar's more dangerous. You can barely taste them, so you draw the smoke deeper into your lungs and that's worse for you. Apparently."

"We were in Brazil last year and the health warnings out there are apocalyptic. Coloured pictures on the packet of hideous things - deformed babies, pickled lungs and stuff. And the warnings... None of that polite 'Her Majesty's Government' stuff. Or 'The Surgeon-General has determined'. They tell you which bits will drop off. There was this guy who went into a shop and bought a packet of... I forget which brand. And comes out, looks at the health warning, goes back in, hands the packet back and says, 'These ones make you impotent. Can I have a packet that gives me cancer?'"

"Yes."

"Well, I thought it was funny."

"Perhaps you've told them the story before, darling."

"Well, the buggers could still laugh. It's my wine they're drinking."

"It was more the way you told it, Phil. Need to tighten the narrative."

"Bastard."

"I think we've got some grass someone left."

"Have we?"

"Yes, in the fridge door."

"Where in the fridge door?"

"The shelf with the parmesan and the tomato paste."

"Who left it?"

"Can't remember. It must be quite old. Probably lost its jiz by now."

"Does it lose its jiz?"

"Everything loses its jiz."

"Presidential candidates?"

"Them more than anyone."

"I offered it to Doreena."

"Who's Doreena?"

"Our cleaner."

"Doreena the cleaner. Are you having us on?"

"You offered it to Doreena?"

"Sure. Is it against the Employment Act or something? Anyway, she didn't want it. Said she didn't do that stuff any more."

"Christ, what's the world coming to when one's cleaner refuses an offer of free drugs?"

"Of course, we know cigarettes are more addictive than anything. Alcohol, soft drugs, hard drugs. More addictive than heroin."

"Do we know that?"

"Well, I read it in the paper. Cigarettes top of the list."

"Then we know it?"

"More addictive than power?"

"Now there's a question."

"We also know - but not from the papers - that all smokers are liars."

"So you're calling us all ex-liars?"

"Yup. And I'm one, too."

"Are you going to be more specific?"

"You lie to your parents when you take it up. You lie about how many you smoke - either under or over. Oh, I'm a four-pack-a-day man, like I've got the biggest cock. Or, oh, we only have one occasionally. That means three a day, minimum. Then you lie about it when you try to give up. And you lie to your doctor when you get cancer. Oh, I never smoked that much."

"Bit hardline."

"True, though. Sue and I used to cheat on one another."

"Dav-id."

"I only mean about cigarettes, sweetie. The, 'Oh, I just had one at lunchtime' stuff. And, 'No, the others were smoking, that's what you can smell.' We both did that."

"So vote for the non-smoker. Vote Hillary."

"Too late. Anyway, I think smokers just lie about smoking. Like drinkers just lie about drinking."

"That's not true. I've lied about other things so I could smoke. You know, 'I'll just go outside and get some fresh air' or, 'No, I've got to get back to the kids'."

"OK, so we're saying smokers and drinkers are general liars."

"Vote Hillary."

"We're saying all liars indulge in lying."

"That's too philosophical for this time of night."

"Self-deceivers, too, that's the other thing. Our friend Jerry was a big smoker - he was of that generation. Went for a general check-up in his 60s and was told he had prostate cancer. Opted for radical surgery. They took his balls away."

"Yup."

"So - so he had just a cock?"

"Well, they gave him prosthetic balls."

"What are they made of?"

"I don't know - plastic, I think. Anyway, they're the same weight. So you don't notice."

"So you don't notice?"

"Do they make them move around like real ones?"

"Are we getting off the subject?"

"Do you know what French slang for balls is? Les valseuses. The waltzers. Because they move around."

"Is that female? I mean feminine. Valseuses."

"Yes."

"Why is bollocks feminine in French?"

"We're definitely getting off the subject here."

"Testicules isn't. But valseuses is."

"Female bollocks. Trust the French."

"No wonder they didn't support the Iraq war."

"Not that anyone around this table did."

"I was sort of 60/40."

"How can you be 60/40 on something like Iraq? It's like being 60/40 on flat earth theory."

"I'm 60/40 on that, too."

"Anyway, the reason I brought up Jerry was because he said he was relieved when they told him he had prostate cancer. He said if it'd been lung cancer, he'd have had to give up smoking."

"So he carried on?"

"Yup."

"And?"

"Well, he was OK for a few years. Quite a few years. Then the cancer came back."

"Did he give up then?"

"No. He said there was no point giving up at that stage - he'd rather have the pleasure. I remember the last time we visited him in hospital. He was sitting up in bed watching the cricket with a huge ashtray full of butts in front of him."

"The hospital let him smoke?"

"It was a private room. It was a private hospital. And this was some years ago. He'd paid - it was his room. That was his attitude."

"Why were you telling us about this guy?"

"I can't remember now. You distracted me."

"Self-deception."

"That's right - self-deception."

"Sounds like the opposite to me - as if he knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe he decided it was worth it."

"That's what I mean by self-deception."

"In which case being a smoker is a necessary training for being president."

"I really think Obama can do it. As your token American."

"I agree. Well, I'm 60/40 on it."

"You're a liberal - you're 60/40 on everything."

"I'm not sure I'd agree."

"See, he's 60/40 even on whether or not he's 60/40."

"By the way, you're wrong about Reagan."

"He didn't advertise Chesterfields?"

"No, I mean he didn't die of lung cancer."

"I didn't say he did."

"Didn't you?"

"No. He had Alzheimer's."

"Statistically, smokers get Alzheimer's much less than non-smokers."

"That's because they're already dead by the time it normally strikes."

"We picked up a New York Times the other week. We were on a flight. There was a report about a study of life expectancy and the comparative cost to the government, or rather the country, of different ways of dying. And those statistics Macmillan was given - when was that?"

" '55, '56, I think."

"Well, they're all to cock. Probably were at the time, too. If you're a smoker, you tend to die in your mid-70s. If you're obese, you tend to die around 80. And if you're a healthy, non-smoking, non-obese person, you tend to die at an average of about 84."

"They need a study to tell us that?"

"No, they need a study to tell us this: the cost in health care to the nation. And this was the thing. Smokers were the cheapest. Next came obese people. And all those healthy, non-obese non-smokers ended up being the biggest drain of all on the country."

"That's amazing. That's the most important thing anyone's said all evening."

"Apart from how good the lamb was."

"Stigmatising smokers, taxing the fuck out of them, making them stand on street corners in the rain, instead of thanking them for being the nation's cheap dates."

"It's the hypocrisy of it all."

"Anyway, smokers are nicer than non-smokers."

"Apart from giving non-smokers cancer."

"I don't think there's any medical basis for the theory of passive smoking."

"Nor do I. Not being a doctor. Just as you aren't."

"I think it's more a metaphor, really. Like, don't invade my space."

"A metaphor for US foreign policy. Are we back to Iraq?"

"British foreign policy, too, I'd like to remind you."

"No need. We do active hypocrisy as well as passive."

"What I meant was, well, it always seemed to me that when everyone smoked, non-smokers were nicer. Now it's the other way round."

"The persecuted minority is always nicer? Is that what Joanna's saying?"

"I'm saying there's a camaraderie. If you go up to someone on the pavement outside a pub or restaurant and ask them to bum a cigarette, or offer to buy one, they'll always give you one."

"You know, I'm surprised that pal of yours didn't go back to the doctor, or the surgeon, and say, can I have a different sort of cancer instead of the one that makes you chop my bollocks off?"

"It wasn't like that. He had a choice of different approaches. He chose the most radical."

"You can say that again. Nothing 60/40 about it."

"How can you do 60/40 when you've only got two balls?"

"60/40 is a metaphor."

"Is it?"

"Everything's a metaphor at this time of night."

"On which note, can you call us a literal taxi?"

"Do you remember the morning after a big smoke? The cigarette hangover?"

"Most mornings. The throat. The dry nose. The chest."

"And the way it was clearly distinguishable from the booze hangover you often had at the same time."

"Booze makes you loose, fags make you tight."

"Eh?"

"Smoking constricts the blood vessels. That's why you could never start the day with a decent crap."

"Was that why?"

"Speaking as a non-doctor, that was your problem."

"So we're back where we began?"

"Which is where?"

"The inverted plastic bag and... "

"Dick, now we really are going."

But they didn't. They stayed, and we talked some more, and we decided that Obama would beat McCain, that the Conservatives were only temporarily indistinguishable from the Labour Party, that al-Qaida would certainly attack the 2012 Olympics, that in a few years Londoners would start getting nostalgic about bendy buses, that in a few decades vineyards would once again be planted along Hadrian's Wall like in Roman times, and that, in all probability, for the rest of the life of the planet, some people somewhere would always be smoking, the lucky buggers.